


Battleforged

by Zombieheroine



Category: Transformers (Unicron Trilogy), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Armada
Genre: Gen, Made For Each Other, Missing Scene, Romantic Tension, Worldbuilding, star-crossed lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 04:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11913117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zombieheroine/pseuds/Zombieheroine
Summary: Prompt: Megatron and Optimus reminiscing about one of their many battles during a truce.United against Unicron Optimus and Megatron stand together and for the first time ever, take an honest look on what's between them.





	Battleforged

**Author's Note:**

> Written of a prompt I got on Tumblr from Bonnini!
> 
> I like Unicron trilogy and it needs more stuff, so here's a little something. I love these two and the thing they clearly have in those series.

The still transforming shape of Unicron loomed over Cybertron and it could be seen from the observation deck of the Autobot space ship. Before it had looked like a regular moon, but now that it was slowly awakening and transforming it had started to warp the space around it as if it weighed down the fabric of reality there and all light escaped the dent it left there. 

Optimus and Megatron stood alone and side by side on the observation deck and beheld the Chaos-Bringer. The silence between them was an odd mixture of comfortable and alien, it lingered there like between old friends and yet they had never been silent and still in each other's company before. It felt awkward solely because they both felt like that was what it should have felt and yet it didn't. 

“Back in the army of Cybertron we often spoke of Unicron the Chaos-bringer,” Megatron mentioned. 

Optimus gave him a curious look from the corner of his optic since he often forgot there had been a world without a war and an order of things where both of them had served mundane functions. “Oh?”

“No one actually believed in him of course,” Megatron continued, “but he made an amusing figure in tall tales, the enemy forces and the havoc they cased in one figure.”

“An archetype,” Optimus summed up, and Megatron nodded. 

They turned to gaze into the space again and regarded the dark shadows the God-Moon cast over their homeworld. 

“I think we are dealing with a bigger thing than simply war,” Optimus said after a moment.

It was Megatron's turn to nod. “I agree. War I can handle, war I have seen and lived in, war I was forged for. But war I can enjoy, and this is not that.”

Optimus huffed through his vents at the comment and noticed with displeasure that he related to the feeling of them. The atmosphere truly was like between two old friends. “I tend to forget that you used to be a general,” he said.

Megatron gave a soft laugh. “I know. Soldiers used to be a different class of mecha and we were set apart from the rest of you. That's not the case any longer.

“I don't think a soldier is a thing you are but a thing you do,” Optimus said. 

“An interesting thought,” Megatron replied.

Unicron cast such deep darkness everywhere he seemed to be dimming the far-away stars and nebulae along with the light of their own sun. When seen from space their planet was supposed to gleam and glow when the sun rays reflected from the rich metals their world was made of, but Unicron's darkness had put that light off. The sun looked pale and Cybertron rusty. A slow, suffocating death was coming for it all. 

“You always fought like you were made for it,” Megatron suddenly said, snapping Optimus out of his grim thoughts and making him turn towards him, surprised.

“Uh... Thank you?” he hesitantly replied.

Megatron huffed a laugh, still staring into the dark space with a ghost of a smirk on his faceplate. “Just accept the compliment, Optimus. No one's here to judge you for it,” he said.

Optimus didn't know what to say to that, mostly because he did feel reassured by the comment, but he didn't turn away from the other either. Actually now that he had a chance to do so in peace he rather liked studying Megatron's features. He was an interesting sight, his deep purple bulky armour, the tank tracks over his shoulders and his antlered helm making him a fascinating mixture of an ancient warrior and a brutal war machine. Somehow both of those traits fit him too. 

“We each have our programming,” Megatron said. “I used to think that Primus Themselves have coded me and others like me for war and only war, setting us apart from the rest and making us the dangerous servants for the rest of his sparks. Weapons for peace, that was what models like myself were called. Quite paradoxical, I always thought.” 

“I agree,” Optimus said. He really did, and since no one was here he could say that. It felt surprisingly liberating to say that aloud, and it must have been detectable from his tone since Megatron glanced at him with bright, knowing optics. 

Optimus glanced around the empty deck to really make sure they were truly alone before continuing: “To be honest I don't think the things about programming and models are true at all.”

Megatron's optic ridges jumped and he made an intrigued noise at the comment, leaning a little bit closer like he was expecting to hear a scandalous secret. There was a hint of mischief in the way his optics gleamed when he looked at Optimus. 

“We look different and are capable of different things, but look at us now: we are all fighting on, all of us weaponized. Maybe we were all made for war, or maybe we weren't made for anything at all but we wanted to think that,” Optimus pondered. 

“I like to think that we're all made for war,” Megatron said with a chuckle. “You and I definitely were, even if no one else was.”

Optimus huffed again. Megatron laughed. 

“You don't like to think of yourself as someone like me, do you,” Megatron mused. “You think I'm a monster.”

“I know you are a monster,” Optimus corrected with a pointed look. 

“True, I am a monster,” Megatron admitted, clearly pleased. “I am built for war, my spark forged to desire battle. And you, you, Optimus Prime, you are always ready when I desire that.”

“Someone has to be,” Optimus said.

“You never hesitate, you never have to think about it, and you are taken by surprise maybe once in a century,” Megatron recited. “Back on Earth the very first thing you did was to meet me in battle.”

Optimus was grateful for the design of his faceplate so he didn't have a smile to cover, but he feared his optics were giving him away so he turned towards the window again. Megatron was speaking of horrible things, and yet Optimus felt oddly flattered by his words and notions and couldn't even place the origin of the feeling. He knew who he was and what the war had always been making him into, he knew being a Prime meant becoming a war machine as well, but he had always treated those things as heavy burdens he was carrying for the sake of those who took strength in someone like him. He was leading because someone had to.

But Megatron's words felt awfully lot like admiration and recognition, and Optimus felt his spark pulsing in pleasure and accepting all of it. 

“You were threatening the children and trying to capture the minicons. Someone had to do something,” he said out loud.

Megatron smirked at him openly now, but not in a mean way rather than with mirth. “Ah yes, so I did. And you were there to capture my servos into yours and wrestle me away from your precious Earthlings. You acted fast and countered me very well that day.”

Optimus cocked an optic ridge and huffed. “You rely on your size and strength a lot. It's not that hard to match you after hundreds and hundreds of times of doing just that. Besides even though you enjoy and definitely know how to use your blaster, you tend to favor bare servos and melee weapons.” 

“I knew you think about our battles as much as I do,” Megatron said. 

“I wouldn't survive if I didn't,” Optimus replied. “Besides I enjoy melee weapons as well. Working with Starsaber has been a good experience.” 

“There's nothing quite like a good tumble,” Megatron said. “And you indulge me every time.” 

Optimus chuckled. “I aspire to be the immovable object to your unstoppable force.”

“You aspire to get in my way?”

“Always.” 

They shared a light chuckle and another long comfortable silence that just wouldn't be awkward no matter how much it should have been. 

“Somehow though... I am glad we exist in the same universe,” Optimus said.

Megatron raised an optic ridge at him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, if I am an immovable object then I cannot exist in the same world with an unstoppable force. The existence of one dictates the impossibility of the other,” Optimus explained. 

Megatron was quiet for a moment. “Hmm,” was all he said. 

They turned back towards the window and the darkness at the same time. The looming threat there was oddly enticing to watch despite all danger: It was a divine creature from the legends after all, and on top of that a good reminder of what really mattered. Unicron the Destroyer, here to remind them that their life cycles had an end point too. 

“Do you think we were made for this war?” Optimus asked with his optics on the God-Moon. 

“I think I was made for every and any war,” Megatron replied, “but what I believe doesn't really matter, does it? Let's say that I'm glad fear was never programmed into my system.”

“I think you and I might have been made specifically for this war,” Optimus said.

Megatron scoffed at the notion. “You believe in destiny.” 

Optimus shrugged. “Not really. I think you and I have made each other into what we are, and now this battle is ours.”

Now Megatron didn't scoff, and what followed was a thoughtful moment of silence. “I like that idea,” he finally said. 

The space was dark and already even more distorted than it had been moments ago. Unicron's transformation was perhaps halfway through and the more he resembled a bot the more he seemed to be weighing on the fabric of space around him. The distant stars were almost invisible by now, and the sun of their solar system almost dim. 

With light the colours were gone too, and Optimus and Megatron were left on the edge of darkness before their hardest battle and the first one on the same side. The darkness was glaring at them, and they looked back.


End file.
